Pissing In The Wind

 

I watch the White House news conferences.

I know what you are saying.

“Why?”

First of all this is suppose to be the CEO of the United State informing the citizens of the land breaking news that will be filled in by additional questions from the media.

Second is these information sessions, especially by the president, were few and very rare so they were important.

Third…. I don’t have any other reason than I don’t watch SNL.

Instead of responding to problems or actions being taken by the federal government that will affect all the country, they have become political rallies. Mostly they could be played on a loop because the same points are repeated almost word-for-word. The press secretary who is suppose to be the spokesperson for the White House has to read out of a book.

Even with this pandemic that is spreading the country has confusing remarks, multiple experts conflicting responses to the president’s statements and no bounding the nation together. With the nation closing down, jobs lost, travel bans, shaky economy, schools closed, hospitals filling up and thousands dying a special committee is formed to repeat the same message every day.

I personally still have my wits to listen and try and understand the ramblings of deflection, blaming, numbers and charts but after awhile it gives me a headache.

I consider myself an Independent and research statements in many sources before making my opinion of what is fact and what is fiction. I don’t go to the political websites to read the propaganda and don’t listen to the talking heads slanting bias with sound bites and bizarre theories.

What worries me is the thread of comments that streams below the video.

The scroll goes too fast to read any complete and I don’t recognize any of the names but I get the gist. If this is what is being said face-to-face then using words you wouldn’t say to your granny doesn’t help to get a point across.

Like screaming at the television on WWE night this is simple road rage with a quick couple of keys and send. It is too fast to fact check or verify and in some cases the provider will block all the comments when they get out of hand.

These may just be a few angry birds or just an example of how polarized our country has become under this cheerleader.

Tomorrow might be another rally or news conference or just a brief yelling from leaving the White House to a helicopter. Whatever is said will be analysis and scrutinized and presented the next day in a 2-minute sound bite.

Onto the next story for all the anger and cursing will just be pissing into the wind.

Kessler Syndrome

 

In this day of worrying about how to pay your bills without an income, school your kids, increase your credit card debt to eat from GrubHub and watch Netflix, call your mother in the nursing home where you cannot travel to as your car’s tires deflate from sitting still in the driveway, decide whether to get a test or a shot of virus, get mad at your team losing in an empty coliseum without a beer because there is a shortage of aluminum, walking your dog with a diaper on your face and not being able to trim your toe nails because you can’t see your feet; here is something else to think about.

Since the first sputnik was sent into the vastness of space in 1957, our little blue marble has been shooting rockets out carrying the latest technological stuff to fly around the globe telling us where the enemy is, what is happening to the weather, how to get from point A to point B and the Internet. This array of satellites running your phone, computer, television and watch are growing by the minute and the ones that are obsolete or stopped working just floating around out there at 15,000mph.

 The inflatable idea of how big the universe is matches our understanding of eternity. If the missiles were just sent out of the atmosphere and beyond our gravity pull, they would just go on forever until they run into a planet or star or get sucked into a black hole.

These useful satellites must be close enough to communicate with the planet so they just rotate around above the clouds. When they stop working they are just left out there.

A note in a bottle thrown into the ocean will bob up and down in the waves and drift out of sight by the currents, but it is still out there. Finding a spot in this space carousal is becoming more difficult, technology continues to improve needing newer upgrades to squeeze in this global highway.

The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, collision cascading or ablation cascade), proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a theoretical scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollution is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions. One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities and the use of satellites in specific orbital ranges difficult for many generations.

As all this space junk start smashing into each other the debris will continue to spread out bumping into others or getting pulled out of orbit by gravity and crashing back on earth.

The bubble of metal projectiles will keep us grounded. If you wondered if we could leave our decaying home planet and move out into space somewhere, not even Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers could get through.

So as you worry about forest fires, hurricanes, floods, drought, hunger, evictions, failing infrastructure, health care, climate change, wars, environment pollution, animal extinction, civil disturbance, political mayhem and what to do now the Kardashians are gone, here is something else to keep you awake at night.

Sweet dreams.

Truancy

Don’t know how the teachers and families are handling education during these times, but I read about Zoom sessions and other online training plus the home schooling combined with a few classrooms opened in the old schoolhouse.

School was confusing enough for me even going everyday to the same classroom, sitting in the same desk, using the same locker, having lunch at the same time and the start and stop of class following a bell. This routine was good for kids who couldn’t make their own rules and could barely tell time.

There was one teacher a year to start with. Then we changed rooms for each subject after an hour. You had to change your notebooks and find your way through the crowds before the next bell rang or get caught by the hall monitor.

Every class had a roll call and coming in late was noticed. If you were tardy too many times that becomes inexcusable. Coming in late disturbed the teaching process and disrupted the class.

If a kid logs on late for an online class, how to they pick up what they missed. Can the class be replayed?

What if you don’t show up for class? Your attendance card is marked missing and the class goes on. What about home schooling? If you don’t show up to the kitchen table on time? Where is a truancy officer to bring you in?

If you act up in class does the teacher mute you or just turns you off? How do you get back into class? Where is the principle’s office? Where is detention? Can you sit in the corner wearing a dunce cone writing “I will be good” 100x on the white board while been shamed by the rest of the class?

Does the teacher send the parents an email? Does the teacher have to have an online FaceTime session to find a solution?

If it is home schooling and your kids don’t understand three different grade schedules is it due to parent’s lack of training or understanding or problems with the learning procedure? How do you, as a teacher, simplify the course for the student’s ability to comprehend or change the curriculum for each child?

Who gives the test?

At home it could be a silent room with each filling out a preprinted form with a time limit. The parent could match the correct answers and fill out an alphabetical grade by percentage.

If online, how can you avoid Googling the answer? I’d think the administrator could monitor and make it as easy as filling out your taxes or ordering from Amazon online.

          Yet some kids will continue to be truant or disruptive or absent so when is the student suspended from school?

Insurrection

In this time of being cloistered, secluded, sheltered, sequestered, shielded, protected, shutoff, isolated, withdrawn, confined, restricted, insulated, reclusive, retiring, unworldly, or solitary during the pandemic one might wonder what would happen if after an election there was an insurrection?

 

A rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It refers to the open resistance against the orders of an established authority.

 

Article I, Section 8, Clause 15:

[The Congress shall have Power . . .] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; . . .

The states as well as Congress may prescribe penalties for failure to obey the President’s call of the militia. They also have a concurrent power to aid the National Government by calls under their own authority, and in emergencies may use the militia to put down armed insurrection.

 The Federal Government may call out the militia in case of civil war; its authority to suppress rebellion is found in the power to suppress insurrection and to carry on war.

The act of February 28, 1795, which delegated to the President the power to call out the militia, was held constitutional.

 A militiaman who refused to obey such a call was not employed in the service of the United States so as to be subject to the article of war, but was liable to be tried for disobedience of the act of 1795.

The act provides a “statutory exception” to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the use of military personnel under federal command for law enforcement purposes within the United States. ... There are Constitutional exceptions to Posse Comitatus restrictions rooted in the President's own constitutional authority.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a United States federal law (10 U.S.C. §§ 251–255; prior to 2016, 10 U.S.C. §§ 331–335; amended 2006, 2007) that empowers the President of the United States to deploy U.S. military and federalized National Guard troops within the United States in particular circumstances, such as to suppress civil disorder, insurrection and rebellion.

The act provides a “statutory exception” to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the use of military personnel under federal command for law enforcement purposes within the United States.

Before invoking the powers under the Act, 10 U.S.C. § 254 requires the President to first publish a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse. As part of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, these provisions are now codified as amended.

There are Constitutional exceptions to Posse Comitatus restrictions rooted in the President’s own constitutional authority. Defense Department guidelines describe “homeland defense” as a “constitutional exception” to Posse Comitatus restriction, meaning that measures necessary to guarantee National Security from external threats are not subject to the same limitations.

The chief clause of the Insurrection Act, in its original 1807 verbiage (which has been thoroughly updated since to reflect modern legalese), reads:

“An Act authorizing the employment of the land and naval forces of the United States, in cases of insurrections Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.”

In 2016, Public Law 114-328 was amended to include Guam and the US Virgin Islands under Ch. 13 jurisdiction. §252: “Use of militia and armed forces to enforce Federal authority” currently reads:

“Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”

 

When a group of people or nations form an alliance, it is called a confederation, allowing each member to govern it but agreeing to work together for common causes. ... Whereas a federation has a strong central government, a confederation is more of an agreement between separate bodies to cooperate with each other.

By definition the difference between a confederation and a federation is that the membership of the member states in a confederation is voluntary, while the membership in a federation is not.

Sometimes confederation is erroneously used in the place of federation. Some nations, which started out as confederations, retained the word in their titles after officially becoming federations, such as Switzerland. The United States of America was a confederation before it became a federation with the ratification of the current U.S. constitution in 1788.

A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issues, such as defense, foreign relations, internal trade or currency, with the general government being required to provide support for all its members. Confederacies represent a main form of intergovernmental, which is defined as any form of interaction between states, which takes place on the basis of sovereign independence or government.

The nature of the relationship among the member states constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the general government and the distribution of powers among them varies. Some looser confederations are similar to international organizations. Other confederations with stricter rules may resemble federal systems.

Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have an implicit right of secession. The political philosopher Emmerich de Vattel observed, “Several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy without each in particular ceasing to be a perfect state.... The deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member”.

Under a confederation, unlike a federal state, the central authority is relatively weak. Decisions made by the general government in a unicameral legislature, a council of the member states, require subsequent implementation by the member states to take effect; they are not laws acting directly upon the individual but have more the character of interstate agreements. Also, decision-making in the general government usually proceeds by consensus (unanimity), not by majority. Historically, those features limit the effectiveness of the union and so political pressure tends to build over time for the transition to a federal system of government, as happened in the American, Swiss and German cases of regional integration.

In the context of the history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, a confederacy may refer to a semi-permanent political and military alliance consisting of multiple nations (or “tribes”, “bands”, or “villages”), which maintained their separate leadership. One of the most well-known is the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois), but there were many others during different eras and locations across North America, such as the Wabanaki Confederacy, Western Confederacy, Powhatan, Seven Nations of Canada, Pontiac's Confederacy, Illinois Confederation, Tecumseh's Confederacy, Great Sioux Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Iron Confederacy and Council of Three Fires.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, historically known as the Iroquois League or the League of Five (later Six) Nations, is the country of Native Americans (in what is now the United States) and First Nations (in what is now Canada) that consists of six nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Seneca and the Tuscarora. The Six Nations have a representative government known as the Grand Council which is the oldest governmental institution still maintaining its original form in North America. Each clan from the five nations sends chiefs to act as representatives and make decisions for the whole confederation. It has been operating since its foundation in 1142 despite limited international recognition today. In fact, Haudenosaunee issues passports for its citizens though travelers often face problems crossing state borders.

 

The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S. or CS) or the Confederacy, was an unrecognized breakaway state that fought against the United States during the American Civil War.

The Confederacy was originally formed by the secession of seven slave states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, and was in existence from 1861 to 1865. All of them are in the Lower South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture—particularly cotton—and a plantation system that relied upon enslaved African Americans for labor. Convinced that white supremacy and the institution of slavery were threatened by the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories, the Confederacy declared its secession in rebellion against the United States, with the loyal states becoming known as the Union during the ensuing American Civil War. In a speech known today as the Cornerstone Address, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens described its ideology as being centrally based "upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition".

Before Lincoln took office in March 1861, a new Confederate government was established in February. It was considered illegal by the United States federal government, and many Northerners thought of the Confederates as traitors. The Confederate states volunteered militia units, and the new government formed its own Confederate States Army practically overnight. After war began in April, four slave states of the Upper South—Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina—also seceded and joined the Confederacy. The Confederacy later accepted the slave states of Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither officially declared secession nor were they ever largely controlled by Confederate forces, despite the efforts of Confederate shadow governments which were eventually expelled. The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession as illegitimate.

The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. No foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy as an independent country, although Great Britain and France granted it belligerent status, which allowed Confederate agents to contract with private concerns for arms and other supplies.

In 1865, after four years of heavy fighting and 620,000–850,000 military deaths, all confederate land and naval forces either surrendered or otherwise ceased hostilities. The war lacked a formal end, with Confederate forces surrendering or disbanding sporadically throughout most of 1865. The most significant capitulation was Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9, after which any lingering doubt regarding the war’s outcome and/or the Confederacy’s prospect for survival was extinguished, although another sizable force under Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston did not formally surrender to William T. Sherman until April 26. The Confederacy’s civilian government also disintegrated in a chaotic manner - the Confederate States Congress effectively ceased to exist as a legislative body following its final adjournment sine die on March 18 while Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s administration declared the Confederacy dissolved on May 5, and Davis himself acknowledged in later writings that the Confederacy “disappeared” in 1865. Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln on April 15, 1865.

After the war, Confederate states were readmitted to the Union during the Reconstruction era, after each ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which outlawed slavery. “Lost Cause” ideology—an idealized view of the Confederacy as valiantly fighting for a just cause—emerged in the decades after the war among former Confederate generals and politicians, as well as organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Particularly intense periods of Lost Cause activity came around the time of World War I, as the last Confederate veterans began to die and a push was made to preserve their memory, and then during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, in reaction to growing public support for racial equality. Through activities such as building prominent Confederate monuments and writing school history textbooks to paint the Confederacy in a favorable light, Lost Cause advocates sought to ensure future generations of Southern whites would continue to support white supremacist policies such as the Jim Crow laws. The modern display of Confederate flags primarily started in the late 1940s with Senator Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, and has continued to the present day.

 

That is what history says.

 

Today people are marching in the streets and some are carrying weapons. The causes range from police brutality to pay inequality to ancient history to housing disparage to unequal education. Throw on top of all that this Corovid-19 virus that has shut down business and recreation and the enjoyment of life. Try and find an answer through the maze and count the numbers.

 

The real life anger and frustration captured on videophones and spread through the screens with additional comments to fuel the fire makes one wonder.

When or how will it end?

If you watch a fearful movie, how long does it take for you to calm down or do you have nightmares? When you wake up the next morning and the movie is still going?

Once cooler weather comes and we scramble into shelter, will we get absorbed into screen time to increase our bias and become more enraged at things we cannot change.

In a month two formidable armies will face off in a spitting match called voting for a democracy with no certain winners.

Then what?

 

This is not a forecast of doom and gloom, but of a possibility.

@#*IT

 

I know a bit about computers. I learned the same way you did. Take it out of the box, put the books to the side, plug it in, turn it on then start punching buttons to see what they do. The same way you build IKEA furniture. The same way you put your lawnmower together. The same way you spent too long trying to get a signal from your new big screen.

So after spending too many hours fretting over these weird signals not allowing me to do what I did yesterday, I finally decided it was time.

The rational thought would be get on the phone and call Rajah for another couple of hours of diagnosis with a probable cause before the phone line breaks up or the battery dies.

Like most problems, you can beat your head repeating the same process over and over or you can back off and take a break.

The Internet thing is always changing and it sends out warning you are not keeping up.

So I checked the OS on this computer and matched it with the OS on the laptop and the OS on the iPad. Just logging onto a app appeared different on each one. Unfortunately in my attempts to solve the problems, the Internet kept telling me to change my passwords.

I can barely keep up with my phone number and my pin number for grocery shopping.

Get a little scrap paper and follow the instructions to change the password. Fine. It also affects other applications. Write it down. Think.

Finally I got all the computers (not the phone because I don’t use that) to work properly. This one won’t take the Apple email anymore on several different browsers. I told you I tried for hours.

Basically this computer OS is too old and can’t be upgraded. It still works fine and has plenty of memory and lots of apps that work so I’ll just avoid the constant nuance of “You’ve Got Mail” on this computer. The Yahoo Mail and the G-Mail work fine so if you get a message it may come from one of those. The Apple mail works fine on the laptop and iPad but they have newer OS versions.

That is the game of this Internet. You must upgrade to stay in touch.

So now I have three choices to log on to the WWW and see if it makes a difference to my life?

Was it worth the struggle?

In Control

 

In this time of the unknown, who is in control?

All the routine is now uncertainty, the normal is absurd and you have no control.

The sun could explode tomorrow and you cannot do anything about it. The earth could spin off its axis and you cannot stop it.

You are not in control.

Back in the days of dullness when wandering the streets with flies and flu and measles and magpies and snakes and dragons and monsters lurking behind every tree, we walk proud to know we were immune to sky falling.

When you wake up, you are out of control. Only after being fueled with java and a hand full of pills can you attempt to accept the sunshine.

When you get dressed, you are out of control. What ever you put on are out of fashion and nothing matches.

When you get into your mobile machine, you are out of control. There are limits on your speed and lines in the path to keep you following all the others.

When your phone rings, you are out of control. You have been trained to answer every message as if you life depended on it. It may?

When you eat, you are out of control. What is placed in your mouth has been taught to you by advertising to be delicious.

When you sleep, you are out of control. All the thoughts of the day will keep you awake until the bell rings unless you take your pills.

When you love.

No matter your title or position in the community, there is always someone else making the rules.

No matter how many letters or emails or protest you send someone else creates your taxes. Someone else will tell you how much money you will earn and when you are fired. Someone else will tell you when dinner will be ready and when to walk the dog.

Look at the children.

They are in control because the world is pretend to them. Dragonflies and lightning bugs are much more interesting than if there is life on Venus. The wonder of lying in damp grass blades finding images in the clouds is more important than who won an Emmy or a basketball game.

For the world is all an illusion until our dreams are dulled with monotony. A few may keep the vision but they do not follow the norm so they are ostracized.

We lose our joy by trying to control it.

Now in this time of utter confusion, we could stop and enjoy our last breathe. Instead of blaming each other, we could define our misery and work together on solving our woes.

Tomorrow if the sun arise, the eggs will be ready for breakfast, the car will start on the first try, the news will report disasters and pain and suffering for that is what we want to hear and at the end of the day you try to close your eyes in the darkness and it is all out of your control.

 Most of my life has been out of control so I’ve accepted being a member of the cast. I’ve played the cards handed to me. Some were folded and some beat the house, but that is the way life is.

To get to this point in time, with a semi-sound mind to reflect on these days of wonder, trying to get control of the situation. People walking the streets carrying guns, kids spray painting every flat surface and breaking windows, videos of disasters flooding the computer screen with a soundtrack of screaming faces spewing distorted interpretations of religion and the Constitution. All the while massive fires burn woodlands and cities, rain floods and wind blows and wars continue around the world and you and I have no control over it. The ice is melting, the animals are becoming extinct and the rent needs to be paid or… and it is all out of our control.

Look at the children.

It is all make believe, isn’t it?

 

Second star on the right, straight until morning.

No Guns

 

So while people start wandering around wearing weapons like an invading army, the mayor and the city council have declared…

 

“September 9, 2020 at 7:26 p.m. EDT

RICHMOND — The Richmond City Council has voted to ban guns at public events, using powers granted to localities under a state law passed this year by the Virginia General Assembly, with city officials citing concerns about violence breaking out during demonstrations across the country.

Mayor Levar Stoney proposed the measure, which the council approved unanimously in a special meeting Tuesday night.

The law prohibits the carrying of guns at public events such as protests, whether the gatherings are permitted or not, and also will apply to nearby public areas such as sidewalks and roadways.

Guns have been prominent at demonstrations in Richmond this year, starting with an event in January that drew as many as 20,000 gun rights advocates from around the country to the city to protest efforts by the General Assembly to limit access to firearms.

Since the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police in May, protesters have taken to the streets of Richmond calling for social justice. After initial violent clashes with police and destruction of property downtown, protests were largely peaceful.

But White supporters of the city’s Confederate statues — most of which have since been removed — began showing up with firearms, and protesters followed suit. While no one was killed during Richmond’s protests, several shootings have been reported.

Richmond residents say ongoing violence has eroded support for demonstrations

In debating the proposed ban, Richmond Police Chief Gerald Smith cited recent events in Kenosha, Wis., in which 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has been charged with fatally shooting two protesters.

“This piece of legislation is a tool … to increase safety,” Smith told the city council.

But a number of speakers warned the council against approving the ban, saying it violated the Constitution’s Second Amendment protections.

“It is unfathomable that in this summer of crime that we have had in Richmond that we want to discuss taking away citizens’ rights to defend themselves,” a speaker named Michael Dickinson told the council.

In Virginia, and elsewhere, gun supporters prepare to defy new laws

The Democratic-controlled General Assembly passed a slate of laws this year aimed at reducing gun violence, including a limit of one handgun purchase per month and a measure that allows a judge to seize weapons from someone who is deemed a threat. The actions followed a mass shooting last year in which a gunman killed 12 people at a Virginia Beach municipal building.

One of the measures empowered local governments to pass their own limits on firearms at public events. That is the law that the Richmond council used this week.

Stoney had proposed the measure in August, but the council delayed acting out of concern about how the law would be enforced. Smith assured council members that enforcing the law would not be expensive and would make the city’s streets safer.”

 

Now that is fine with me for I don’t want to see an army roaming the streets but there is a problem…

 

“Historians trace Virginia’s first experience with gun control laws back to the First General Assembly of Jamestown on July 30, 1619. During this-five day meeting, Virginia officials voted in a gun control enactment, which regulated the sale of firearms to Native Americans. In fact, each period of American history brought with it its own series of gun control regulations in Virginia. More recently, in the fallout of the Virginia Beach mass shooting in the summer of 2019, Governor Northam’s Democrat controlled General Assembly have attempted to pass substantial new gun control legislation. In February 2020, a proposed assault weapons ban failed in the Virginia Senate. In April 2020, several new gun laws were enacted, including a requirement of background checks for private sales, a red flag law enabling Extreme Risk Protection Orders, a requirement to report lost or stolen guns, and the reinstating of a one-handgun-a-month law.”

 

So whatever the problem with emasculation or inadequacies to carry a weapon for all to see is intimidation. 

 

“In the United States, open carry refers to the practice of “openly carrying a firearm in public”, as distinguished from concealed carry, where firearms cannot be seen by the casual observer. To “carry” in this context indicates that the firearm is kept readily accessible on the person, within a holster or attached to a sling. “Carrying” a firearm directly in the hands, particularly in a firing position or combat stance, is also known as “brandishing” and may constitute a serious crime, but that is not the mode of “carrying” discussed in this article.”

 

Before China invented gunpowder, we just beat up on each other with sticks and stones. After the fireworks, we found to put an object in a tube could be propelled causing damage at a far away place or person.

For years and years and many wars the weapons of destruction have been refined and the availability has grown so every man, woman and child can be packing.

 Having all these weapons must be for self-preservation since hunting for sustenance doesn’t seem as necessary with 7-11 and Food Lion.

Carrying a firearm to a protest with emotions already heightened is asking for a confrontation. When will a stand off become a shot out?

 

The second amendment declares…

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

 

The accepted organizations wearing weapons have been the Armed Forces, the National Guard, the State Police, the community Police, Security Guards and now Neighborhood Militias.

Have no idea how many of us are wandering the streets and the grocery stores and attending office meetings or stopping by the urinal or celebrating weddings or Bar Mitzvahs or just hanging out with neighbors playing hide and seek with deadly weapons.

If it is necessary to draw where is the target? Every shot fired has a consequence.

No firearms at protest but I don’t know how it will be enforced. Will everyone be patted down or a metal detector wand used? Law suites of public rights will abound but the alternative is bodies on the street.

Perhaps we are getting back to the ole Wild West strapping on a gat before going to the daycare to pick up your kid is required for self preservation.

Wellness vs Health

 

We all want to live forever, but even with annual check-ups, we spend our time sitting on the sofa watching the big screen and eating junk food.

When we were young we were invincible with a metabolism that burns all those fries and pizzas.

If we were dedicated to taking care of our bodies we wouldn’t be pressured to start smoking or attending frat keg parties.

Health insurance as a benefit was just another deduction from the paycheck until the baby came along.

Holidays and Birthdays and other gatherings were centered on abundance of eating and drinking. If jogging and going to the gym were going to work off all those calories, we’d all look like Olympians.

When we get sick or old, we want to repent for all those years of indulgence.

Now with Covid-19 virus flying around the world, everyone is concerned about our health. With no cure, it seems so simple.

Wear a mask, stay away from people and wait.

This doesn’t work for people in prisons or apartments or schools or public transportation or hospitals or barracks or dormitories or senior homes or any confined space.

Going to your medical professional to get a test or a diagnosis may prove positive or negative for the moment.

With so many unemployed and lost of health insurance, there are fees for service. There is a cost for health care.

No matter what you eat or how much you exercise or if you sleep well, there is a time stamp on life.

Good luck.

Power Outage

False Positive

 

Have you taken the test?

Did you pass or fail?

Is that it?

Or do you get a second opinion?

I sat in the classroom with all the others. I listened to the teacher and copied what was on the blackboard.

When the test was handed out, I failed.

Do you get a second chance?

Now there are medical test to see if you are sick.

What if you fail?

Do you go to a different doctor to get another opinion?

Life is just your opportunity to explore and make decisions on how you wish to live.

You meet someone at a party and seem to find a connection until she introduces you to her husband.

That was a false positive.

If the doctor gives you a certain time until the lights go out, do you follow the diagnosis?

What if that is a false positive?

She is going to have my baby.

That was a false positive.

You are going to get that raise.

That was a false positive.

You will stay married.

That was a false positive.

Your house will get you through retirement.

That was a false positive.

The warranty will last on your dishwasher.

That was a false positive.

Your roof will last forever.

That was a false positive.

You will live forever…

Home Sweet Home

 

From the time we could walk on two legs scouring the landscape for fruits and bugs to keep us alive, when the weather got threatening, we stood under a tree (for climbing had lost it’s thrill) or find a cave for shelter. Once we found fire our new home would get rather smoky without any windows.

As our family grew larger, we had to move to another neighborhood. With extended family members we formed tribes.

We migrated into parts unknown but others were living there. These were indigents who had already staked their claim on a plot of soil to raise their brew.

Sharing abundance was never our prime suite, so we cut down the timbers and diverted waters and even kidnapped a few until there was opposition to our aggression. Mono a mono.

With the knowledge of how to use tools, we built walls around our shelters. Was it to protect others from taking our stuff or to keep our stuff in? Ask the insurance agent.

As we left the rural farming culture to industrial society, cities were created. Buildings were built around factories to house the workers. With this congregation of former vagabonds came the need to fresh water, sanitation and markets. As the cities grew larger telephones were needed to communicate to one-another and then electricity came so we could plug in our televisions.

Still some still wanted to wander. The gypsies and nomads continued to search for new adventures that turned into a tourist industry.

For the rest to settle down to a good job with benefits and a retirement plan, a plot of land, a wife and two kids and a house with a garage was the ideal. Old farmland was divided up and sold in lots called suburbia and real estate agents loved the banks lending money.

If you didn’t have the money to purchase land there was plenty to go around. Cross the line and pitch a tent and you become a camper. Borders were disturbed as trespassing against vagrants.

Those with extra cash built multiple room buildings to loan the space to those who could pay the rent. Some were called apartments and some were called hotels, but all were for temporary occupancy and then vacancy.

Jump ahead when an approximate 30 million have become unemployed and unable to pay for food, health and rent.

The way the game is played, you have so many days to pay your rent until you get an eviction notice. With no options your ‘stuff’ will be put out on the street.

Now everyone else will be complaining about the homeless. The charities will do what they can with funds from those complaining and the governmental handouts from the taxpayers.

Like the migrants who wander across the border to produce our crops and pluck our fowl, if without the proper paperwork, will be placed in detention camps.

Some are called prisons. Some are called retention centers. Some are called ghettos.

Once a locality takes charge of people who have nothing, they take the responsibility to shelter, clothe, feed and bed. There are medical assistance and occupational assistance for those who are just looking to survive day-to-day.

For the others will be under bridges or on park benches.

Does anyone consider the empty rooms available during the day?

If the hotel isn’t booked to capacity for a convention there is a vacancy. When people go to the office their home is empty. Most homes have more rooms that are being occupied. Office buildings are empty during the evening hours.

Our species just want a place to keep warm and dry.